Cycle 2 - Focus on Citizenship

Today, we met as a group to consolidate our first cycle (data) and begin brainstorming our second cycle for NPDL. Some of our thoughts about our first experience We are already feeling a lot more confident with the terminology and the concepts expressed in the framework as we were able to brainstorm several ideas, finally zeroing in on the inquiry question of "What does school look like?". We want our students to move towards a global perspective by connecting with other students from locations outside of Canada, specifically in India. India was chosen due to the connection between St. Gregory and the Sarada Vidyalayam School (find more info HERE about the school and the story behind the school).

We thought a focus on connecting the schools would be a great way to expose the students to global perspectives. We wanted to ensure that the focus was not on making on students feeling guilty for been born into a life of (relative) privilege but rather to understand that there are marked differences and similarity between them and students from other locations around the world.

The first step is to translate the Citizenship dimensions into child-friendly language. We would like to have the students be able to self assess pre- and post to gauge their own movement through the progressions. Also, by co-construction the progression, we hope to gain greater insight into the criteria so that we will be able to be better able to determine at which point along the progression each students may be at.

Some of our brainstorming notes from our session

We are also looking to use technology to connect our classes through padlets, hangouts and forms. We have our question: "What is school like?"

From here we are going to start by having our students brainstorm what questions could be asked to the school in India in order for us to look for similarities and differences. The primary classes plan to complete a shared Padlet to brainstorm "What is school like?". The junior classes will link up via Google Hangout in order to brainstorm questions. 

Once we have a list of questions, we will compose a Google form that will be filled out by the school in India. We are also hoping that we will be able to start a slow video chat, where the schools pose questions via video to each other. We would pose a question (e.g. What sort of games do you play at your school?") and the India school would create a video response to our question and then pose a question to us. 

Since St. Gregory has been involved in fundraising for this school for some time now, we are hoping that a greater connection with 

We are MUCH more aware of the progressions than in the first cycle. The first time around, there was a lot of quiet time and a bit of "deer in the headlights" but this time we were all excited to get started. Ideas were flying out, all through the lens of the progressions. 

Co-constructing the citizenship progressions

We are looking forward to connecting and getting started on this project!

My Final Reflections

For the past month (plus some interruptions and holidays) my class has been working on our data inquiry project). This was the first time, I let the students guide their learning as I stepped back and watch them stumble and struggle through the data. I have complete this project in future years but it was extremely teacher-led. I had deadlines, everyone was doing the same thing at the same time, in the same way and only if I said it was okay. The project was neat and tidy and I had several great examples of data tables and graphs with which to evaluate my students' learning. This year, it took a lot longer than expected and I feel as though, in the end, less "grade 5 data curriculum" knowledge was gained than in previous years. Other skills were definitely fostered, however, and it is this trade-off that I am currently pondering: was it worth it? This was my first experience allowing students to guide their learning and probably, in hindsight, I gave them too much freedom and therefore certain data skills were not explored.

Finding the balance between student-led and teacher-led is extremely difficult. Allowing students to lead their learning while still knowing the appropriate time to jump in and/or re-direct or to let them work it out will continue to be a challenge for me. For this project, any time I wanted to step in to correct a misstep or to try and alter a student's research, I held myself back (probably too much). Unfortunately, it was only at the end that I realized the lack of "product" and understanding that came from my lack of assistance.

On the positive, the students DID come up with some excellent questions to explore and DID sift through the raw data (school data) to come up with some initial answers to their questions. What was missing in the majority of their work was the relevance of the data they collected. One of the questions that I asked during the conferences was "How could you use this data?". Hardly any students had an idea of how their data could be used. 

This missing connection was most likely due to the students focusing solely on the school data and failing to look at the Canadian data and/or international data. For example, one group was investigating the heights of 10 year old boys. They only looked at the school data and made their conclusion that the average 10 year old boy was 143.63 cm; however, by not looking at the Canadian averages or averages from other countries around the world, this info has very little relevance. 

In the end, I am happy the project is done as I feel it would have taken a few more weeks (time that at this point I don't have) to sort everything out. Saying that, I certainly don't regret letting go of the reins. I feel as though it was a necessary step in my own growth surrounding inquiry, specifically in connection to the NPDL framework.

Would I do this project again as a student-led inquiry - YES! but I would do three things differently.

1) I would ensure that students had a better grasp of some of the basic skills before allowing them to take charge. I started our unit with this project. My intention was to teach mini-lessons as they arose but it was almost impossible for me to keep tabs on everyone and teach accordingly. Next time, I would ensure that my students were proficient in the following data skills before starting the project:

• using a table to organize data
• how different graphs (pictograph, bar, line, circle) can be used to highlight different patterns in the data
• how to calculate mean and find the median
• how to convert a fraction to a percentage (the Canadian data was in % and students had trouble comparing the class data to Canadian data since the units were different)
• some experience in using basic formulas and functions of spreadsheets

2) I would schedule formal "check-ins" on a weekly basis where students would discuss what they have determined up to that point and determine some goals and next steps for the upcoming week. This would allow the students a chance to practice sharing (and articulating) their learning as well as to ensure they weren't spinning their wheels.

3) I would have students practice before the final conference. As students have not had a lot of experience with conferencing, I would probably have an example set of data and, as a class, we could do a mock conference and develop some "look fors". Then, I might have students pair up and conference with each other, taking turns to present their data. 

This experience has been helpful in the development of my own teaching philosophy and pedagogy. It was good to see that my students can do things without my constant guidance but was also helpful to see that in some cases, I can't just let them loose with no facilitation or guidance. I hope that other classes have enjoyed this process and I look forward to hearing about their discoveries. 

Student Conferences

Rather than having students present to the class (although I still may have them share their findings a later date) or submit a portfolio to me for evaluation, I decided that I would schedule students conferences. I plan to meet each student in 5-minute blocks. During that time, students will share their initial question, predictions and findings. I am hoping that by having them explain their data and how they reached their conclusions, I will gain a richer picture of their learning. I shared a copy of the conference "questions"with the students and let them know that I would be using some of the questions to guide the conference but that the time was for them to share their data with me.

Here is a list of the questions:
1) What was the question you were investigating?
2) What was your initial prediction before you saw any data?
3) After viewing that data, what is the answer to your question?
4) What data, tables and/or graphs do you have to justify your findings?
5) If present, why do you think there was a difference between your predictions and the actual data?
6) If present, why do you think there was a difference between the school data and Canadian data?
7) How might you use your data? What may be a next step or next question?
8) What was the most difficult part of this project?

I am SO happy that I chose this format as it allowed me to ask questions and clarify things in their research. This helped to identify the level of understanding the students had regarding their data and data skills. It also allowed me to identify holes in their learning. The feedback I received was much richer than if I had the student present to the class or just hand in a package of their research.

Following the conferences, I was left a little underwhelmed. This project has been an interesting experience for me as it is the first time I totally gave up control. As it appears as though the students did not really obtain the level of critical thinking I was hoping for, I will have to ponder what went wrong and, more important, what I can do next time to ensure the experience is even better.

Starting to Organize Data

Today, I gave the students access to the raw data. Wow - it was interesting how they started sifting through the information. This was the most challenging day for me in terms of stepping back and letting them develop ways to organize the data on their own. I wanted to shout "Just make a tally chart!" but watched as students made lists, developed their own codes, highlight and colour information, and discuss unexpected results ("Wow - this kid took 25 seconds for the reaction time question! I wonder why?"). I did see some students making tallies, using tables to organize their data, and even calculating the mean and median of their data (well they were figuring out a way to do this anyway). After about 15 minutes, I let the class know that they were allowed to walk around and check out how other groups are organizing their data and could ask questions to these other students if needed.

Below is a vine of today's exploration:

We didn't have any technology available today (so much for "leveraging digital"!) but in a sense I found the students were able to focus on the data and organization methods as opposed to worrying about formatting and tech issues. I ended up handing out a pocket portfolio to each group for them to store all of their work.

It was certainly an interesting experience. I didn't realize that "teacher-directed" was such an integral part of my teaching approaches. This is one more step towards letting my students direct their learning (moving from lecturer to facilitator).

I am sort of wondering where to go from this point... is it time for some student sharing, establishing co-constructed anchor charts, and some additional teacher prompting... or do I give it some more time and see what the students do? Tomorrow we have about 30 minutes to keep working through the data but I will give each group a Chromebook and a link to the data to see how they use the technology to help sift through. 

Choosing a Big Idea or Questions from the data

As a precursor to introducing the project and the survey data, I shared the results of a "getting to know you survey" that I had conducted the first week of school. Find the survey results HERE.

I had students look through the data and post their "wonderings" on a padlet (see below). Some of the questions were based on the data and some used the ideas in the data to spur new questions. 

We had a great discussion on how we can create questions without bias and, more importantly, if the questions may serve a purpose (other than mere curiosity). Following our conversation, I shared a PDF of the census at schools survey questions and had them post their wonderings on a new padlet. Some students came up with some intriguing questions to explore (e.g. does gender affect reaction time) and some were drawing blanks. I had the list of what I considered the more "meaty" survey questions (see previous post) to help prompt. 

The following is a list of student-generated questions (or big ideas) that they will be digging into over the next weeks. 

• Does geography (where we are born) affect the colour of our eyes?
• Does it take a shorter amount of time to get to school in 2014 then it did 10 years ago?
• Are more elementary kids choosing online communication (as opposed to person-to-person) to interact with their friends?
• Exploring local (St. Gabriel) and national opinions about why people bully.
• Does geography affect your height? Comparing heights of 10-year old boys in Canada, UK, and Japan.
• The languages we speak: is Canada really a bilingual nation?
• Are water bottles losing popularity?
• Dog or cat – which is the more popular pet?
• The popularity of Math (music, English) over the years
• In which season are the most babies born?
• How important is internet connectivity to elementary students?
• Investigating the effect of handedness and gender on reaction time.
• Do our breakfast choices follow the Canada Food Guide?
• Are Canadian girls taller than other girls around the world?
• Has the amount of Canadian children with allergies increased over the past 10 years?

Some students want to compare our school data to Canadian data. Some want to look at Canadian data over time, and some want to compare school data to international data. Some students are working independently and some are working in pairs (we have one group of 3).

Tomorrow, students will be developing their objective statements (basically a more detailed version of their question) and will be predicting what the data may look like for our school, Canada, and (if necessary) other countries. I plan to share the census at schools data with them on Monday.

Just as an aside, I am not formally teaching anything "data management" related leading up to this project. I want to see which learning objectives and big ideas the students will stumble across via their own learning. I will be tracking this as I observe it. Never having taught with this degree of student-centredness, I am finding it a bit frightening and liberating at the same time!

How is everyone else doing?

Introducing the Project to the Students

Today, I met with the other grade 5 teachers at my school. We are all completing the Census at School task. So far we have collected data from 58 grade five students at our school. We decided as a team that this is enough data and we do not need to track down those students (there are about 10 of them) who have yet to fill out the survey.

On Wednesday, we will be introducing the project to all of the grade fives. We discussed that we would start by re-visiting the survey questions (a PDF of the questions can be found HERE). We want students to explore a question, or combination of questions, that interests them. Saying that, we are anticipating that for some students, this may be too open-ended. We have created a list of possible questions that we will make available to students unable to determine a suitable exploration question on their own.

The list includes the following (dates refer to the year in which that question was added to the survey):

• In how many languages can you hold an everyday conversation? (2007)
• Do you have allergies?  (2004)
• Right-handed, left-handed or ambidextrous? (2005)
• What do you usually eat for breakfast? (2005)
• Why do you think some kids bully others? (2009)
• Which method do you use most often to communicate with friends? (2007)
• Primarily what type of water do you drink at home? (2007)
• Importance of Environmental Initiatives (2007)
• Importance of Technology (2007)

• What colour are your eyes?  (2003)
• How do you usually travel to school? (2004)
• How long does it usually take you to travel to school? (2003)
• What is your favourite subject? (2006)
• If you had $1,000 to donate to charity, what type of organization would you choose? (2005)
• Whom do you look up to? (2003)
• How many people usually live in your household? (2007)
• Which of the following pets do you have? (2004)

Students will be tasked with determining a question (either one from the survey or one they come up with based on the survey questions), explaining why they chose those questions, and make predictions (with supporting details) regarding the data for our school’s grade five population (sample size = 58). Once they have written their objectives and predictions, we will provide them a link to the school data.

The school data will be given in the form of a link to a viewable Google doc. Students can make a copy of the doc in order to manipulate it in their own Google drive. From here, teachers will be observing how the students use the data to fulfil their objectives. As all grade 5 students will be completing the project, we will be having students with similar questions conference together (our goal here is to explore the “Collaborative knowledge construction” dimension of the Critical Thinking competency).

This is just the initial launch. All of us here at St. Gabriel are excited to see how the students decide to use the data, collect the data, organize the data, and interpret the data. There are many directions that they could go and we are cognizant to allow the students to take the lead. Wish us luck!

Growth Mindset

When we look at new pedagogies and deeper learning goals across whole education systems, we look at growth mindset. What skills will our students need to leave us with? How are we instilling those skills in our students?

According to many researchers (Hindle, Hattie), having a Growth Mindset (specifically in math but not limited to math) is an approach to teaching mathematics which believes that mindset is more important than initial ability in determining the progress made by students in their mathematical understanding. 

Students with a growth mindset:

• Believe that talents can be developed and great abilities can be built over time 
• View mistakes as an opportunity to develop 
• Are resilient 
• Believe that effort creates success 
• Think about how they learn 

Students with a fixed mindset:

• Believe that talent alone creates success 
• Are reluctant to take on challenges 
• Prefer to stay in their comfort zone 
• Are fearful of making mistakes 
• Think it is important to 'look smart' in front of others 
• Believe that talents and abilities are set in stone, you either have them or you don't 

As a team we have chosen to look at growth mindset specifically around the area of math. Marilyn Kasian has shared her growth mindset student survey with our team in order for us to capture some data around growth mindset. We have decided to administer this survey to each of our students at the beginning of our learning with data management and will administer again at the end of the unit to see if and how students thinking around mindset and math has changed based on their experiences. The following is the student survey that all participating students will complete around growth mindset in math.